Category Archives: Technology

Build the future with geodesic domes! This technology has been around for nearly 100 years. Geodesic domes utilize the power of natural geometry to make mind-blowing, incredibly efficient structures. Think of how the shell of an egg can hold its shape, and how a spider web can be very light and yet be strong enough to catch prey. This technology is a celebration of nature as opposed to an attempt to conquer it. For those more technical readers out there… A geodesic dome is a spherical or hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a network of geodesics (great circles) on the surface of a sphere or a hemisphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements, which have local, triangular rigidity, and so distribute the structural stress throughout the geodesic sphere.

The first dome was designed and patented for a planetarium right after World War I. Twenty years later R. Buckminster Fuller gave the dome the name geodesic. Although Fuller was not the original inventor, he is credited with the U.S. popularization of the idea for which he received a U.S. patent. The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, its “omnitriangulated” surface provided an inherently stable structure, and because a sphere encloses the greatest volume for the least surface area. Fuller hoped that the geodesic dome would help address the postwar housing crisis.

These homes are extremely energy efficient for many reasons. More specifically…

Its decreased surface area requires less building materials.

Exposure to cold in the winter and heat in the summer is decreased because, being spherical, there is the least surface area per unit of volume per structure.

The concave interior creates a natural airflow that allows the hot or cool air to flow evenly throughout the dome with the help of return air ducts.

Extreme wind turbulence is lessened because the winds that contribute to heat loss flow smoothly around the dome.

It acts like a type of giant down-pointing headlight reflector and reflects and concentrates interior heat. This helps prevent radiant heat loss.

The net annual energy savings for a dome owner is 30% less than normal rectilinear homes according to the Oregon Dome Co. This is quite an improvement and helps save the environment from wasted energy. Domes have been designed by Bucky and others to withstand high winds and extreme temperatures as seen in the Polar regions. Dome homes can be kind of weird looking and they don’t necessarily fit in all the beautiful square neighborhoods when you’re walking around the suburban world, but Fuller saw much potential in those triangles. Dome homes have become one of the most efficient building systems available. Not only are they energy-efficient and cheaper to build than a standard home but they are beautiful in appearance and and have endless design possibilities both interior and exterior.

In the future large urban areas could be domed under a single roof. The dome would be airtight and pressurized, creating a habitat that can be controlled for air temperature, composition and quality, typically due to an external atmosphere (or lack thereof) that may be harmful to habitation for one or more reasons. These cities may be situated on Earth, a moon or another planet. The world’s first climate controlled domed city is being built in Dubai.

The Black Knight Satellite is an metallic object in a polar orbit with Earth. There has been a lot of fairly fantastical speculation over the origins and purpose of this 100 meter long (328 feet) satellite. The satellite was discovered in the 1920’s by means of radio transmissions. Scientists, including the brilliant Nikola Telsa were believed to receiving radio transitions from the spinning hunk of metal. This was one of the first recorded cases of Long Delay Echoes (LDE), a phenomena in which the sender of a radio transmission receives an echo of the transmission after a minimum of 2.7 seconds.

The orbit of the object is highly eccentric. It is in a polar orbit, meaning that its flight path passes over both magnetic poles of the planet. Humans launched the first satellite that had an intentional polar orbit in 1960. The Black Knight is the only non terrestrial object to have this flight pattern. It circles the Earth at 79 degrees off the equator, not the 90 degrees that is considered a standard polar orbit. The Black Knight is moving quickly, completing it’s orbit every 104.5 minutes. No country has claimed the object.

This ends the factual list for the Black Knight Satellite. The rest of the available information is mainly speculation. The United States and Russian government have shown marked interest in the device but not shared much of it’s information.

‘Black Knight is a jumble of completely unrelated stories; reports of unusual science observations, authors promoting fringe ideas, classified spy satellites and people over-interpreting photos. These ingredients have been chopped up, stirred together and stewed on the internet to one rambling and inconsistent dollop of myth,’ said senior education support officer, Martina Redpath, of Armagh Planetarium.

There is the theory that it is a bungled spacecraft part or a broken satellite. This is the most easily dismissed theory, as the discovery of the object predates the first satellite launch. Its massive size also eliminates the remaining probability of it being a forgotten human construct.

The more popular theories say the Black Knight is an alien probe, spy device, or part of a larger alien communication network. This is due to a number of people recording radio transmissions seeming to originate to the satellite. Tesla said the frequency and elements of the transmission were unlike any he had seen before. There are many natural phenomena that Tesla could have been receiving that science as a whole had not yet to identify. While we can not validate the theory that he was listening to the Knight it is an interesting theory.

In 1973, Duncan Lunan, a science fiction author and graduate of the famous University of Glasgow, experimented with the transmissions emanating from the Black Knight. The strength and intervals of the transmissions led him to believe that the signals were coming from Epsilon Bootis, a star near the Moon. Translating the messages led him to believe the transmissions had been going on for 13,00 years. The Black Knight was send star charts and information to find other intelligent life!

The lack of information creates appropriate space for varied interpretations of available fact. People desperate for conformation of alien life are willing to view elements in a certain light to create hope. As space travel becomes more sophisticated, hopefully we will be able to extract the device for study. It is bizarre that such a mystery has been spinning around our planet for at least decades, and organizations aren’t more interested in it.

Cymatics is the study and creation of models of vibrations. Everything vibrates at a certain level and these scientists are placing different mediums in direct interaction with sound waves and other distinguishable vibrations. Different sounds create distinct geometric representations in different mediums.

The CymaScope device registers vibrations by sounds on the surface of distilled water. The surface tension of the water provides the stark clarity you can see in the video below. It has been used to record representations of various music and speeches. This representation is how scientists believe that dolphins ‘hear’ and recognize words. Though we don’t quite understand how.

Each medium is beautiful unique in it’s representation of sound. The spiraling geometry is not only an amazing visual but a revealing metaphor for perception. Seeing the shifting shapes in relation to tonal changes is created by crazily simple science.

The medium (in this case water) is vibrated, causing the regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible. The Cymascope registers the variations of displacement and clarifies them through imaging technology. Continue reading →

Solar technology is normally a focus of renewable energy. Up until this point, they have been expensive, bulky and easily broken. The initial costs of setting up solar panels are the biggest hang up for investors. That is until scientists, as part of the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium, printed the largest ever printed solar cells with a newly developed solar cell printer.

The new cells are semi-transparent, flexible, light weight, cheap and to top it off made from organic materials. It seems like this would be just as pricey as its predecessors but one of the project partners says

“The consortium is currently only purchasing materials on a research scale. When bought on a larger scale it is anticipated that component costs will be significantly lower and that pricing around A$1/W will be achievable.”

The amazing pricing aside, these panels will be easily installed to windows, roofs, and local signage. While this project is still in its research phase, scientists remain hopeful about its wide range of applications.

The ease of production is a huge selling point for potential investors. Factories will be smaller, cheaper and will limit negative impacts on its surroundings. This decentralized approach to production will spell massive expansion once the project enters large scale manufacturing. The fact that they are so easily and cheapily transported (because they are so light) is another great selling point

Crop circles are designs that have been imprinted in crop fields. Sounds simple until we get into the nitty gritty details. The creators of these designs are a mystery for one. While a handful of humans have come forward to claim responsibility, there are many more instances that humans couldn’t have accomplished.

There are only so many hours in the night and many crop circles are huge (some spanning over a kilometer). It would take a massive team of people of people using GPS, lasers, and advanced, localized microwave emitters to produce the typical crop circle. This would be a very noticeable night time event. Even if a group of people were that organized and ninja trained, they would still very likely leave foot prints.

It was originally thought that a team of hoaxsters could use planks attached to ropes could bend the stalks. The manner that the more mysterious circles have been formed reveals a difference in how the stalks can be bent. Any physical means of forming the stalks breaks or deforms them. Only intense heated microwaves bends the stalk without deforming it. There is no hand held device that could do this on the such a large magnitude.

Over the crop circles that have no obvious creator,there is a strong magnetic resonance to be found lingering for a couple of days. We have no applicable knowledge of what could magnetize an entire field of crops or for what purpose. Scientific research has been conducted but no conclusions have been drawn. We gather facts of the after math but scientists would need information during or before the event to truly qualify what is going on.

The lack of obtainable information on the how is fairly is more than perplexing. There is a message being projected from some sort of entity and we are clueless as to what it is. If its aliens why would they choose such an indirect manner of communication. With their advanced technology there would be many avenues available for them to communicate to us.

There are theories that crop circles are communications from inter dimensional beings, or other supernatural entities. What really gives the latter theory clout is they have to use indirect means to contact us. Kind of like how entities use repeating numbers or other omens to communicate. They have restrictions placed on how they can cross ideas from the immaterial to the physical. As time goes on and more testing methods are employed to gather information we are more likely to glean new information.

Fasting is the process that a person for goes food for a period of time to achieve a physical or spiritual goal. The positives of fasting have always been up contested. Once having fasted people experience new perspectives, renewed mental focus, a stronger constitution and a clearer relationship with their body. Recent science though is starting to reveal incredible evidence backing this age old practice.

Mark Mattson is the current Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute of Aging. Mattson is a world class researcher specializing in the cellular and molecular mechanisms of different neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. What he and researchers like him have found is amazing though scary for the current concepts of health science.

We can’t look at the subject of fasting as a means of treating patients because large corporations have too much at stake to ever let us see the whole picture. I know That sounds like I’m a crazy man with a conspiracy theory but its true. Over the last to decades more and more scientific practices have been called into question. The medical profession has been bought by the Pharmaceutical brands.

Beyond the pharma companies is the food industry and anyone making a buck off health trends. The more we eat the more they make money. If fasting became an accepted practice they could stand to lose millions. While we have experimental results of fasting being healthy,more research is needed. Though everything we’ve seen is very exciting.

“Dietary changes have long been known to have an effect on the brain. Children who suffer from epileptic seizures have fewer of them when placed on caloric restriction or fasts. It is believed that fasting helps kick-start protective measures that help counteract the overexcited signals that epileptic brains often exhibit. (Some children with epilepsy have also benefited from a specific high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.) Normal brains, when overfed, can experience another kind of uncontrolled excitation, impairing the brain’s function, Mattson and another researcher reported in January in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience,’ says Mattson.

Fasting experiments had amazing results with animals.

“Calorie restriction (CR) extends life span and retards age-related chronic diseases in a variety of species, including rats, mice, fish, flies, worms, and yeast. The mechanism or mechanisms through which this occurs are unclear.”

We can prove that fasting or calorie restrictive diets have positive effects we are just unclear on how. As the you get hungry the body and brain enter into a ‘survival mode’. The prioritization list for bodily functions changes and is done with the highest efficiency possible to save on resources. One clear reaction is protein production increases which promotes the growth of neurons, the connections between neurons and the strength of the synapses.

Separating the science from the politics will be hard here. This subject spans many subjects that people either hold very dear or make their livings off. This fear of moving forward because we may lose what we have is debilitating